Vid reviews

Here you’ll find a couple of videos with reviews of my balcony-grown pods, done by Paul from the UK and Todd from the US, two great fellow chileheads and growers who I consider to be amongst the best pepper-testers out there.

Paul’s reviews are highly educative, presented in a calm and concise manner, covering as much info on the objects of his tests as you can possibly ask for.
Todd is a professional chef from Florida. He produces some hands down excellent hot-sauces that are right up to gourmet level. His vids feature some expert culinary knowledge and ideas as well as some cracking language that might as well come right out of a Tarantino chilehead movie (if he ever did one, that is).

On cam, both of them have ridden out some of the meanest of pods around today, like the Carolina Reaper, so they both for sure know how to handle even absolutely insane levels of heat.

Two very different varieties in terms of genetics, heat and taste. The Aji Golden is fresh, sweet and fruity and the pods Paul tried had almost no heat to them at all. The smaller pods on the same plant came out distinctly hotter, around the 15,000 SHU mark. The Jamaican Hot Chocolate has a solid Habanero-level burn and a fruity-earthy taste that makes it go great on burgers, in powders and hotsauces.

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Limon & Habanero Hot Lemon (both c. chinense) by Paul

Two varieties from my 2012 season that I really like for their look and productivity, but not so much in terms of flavour and type of heat. The Limon is probably way underneath the 100,000 SHU mark, still I find its burn to be very harsh, sharp and nasty. The Habanero Hot Lemon has some exceptionally strong and stingy heat for a hab. Both of them work very nice in powders, though. Especially when mixed in with other varieties.

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Frontera Sweet, Foodorama & Trinidad SB (all c. chinense) by Paul

Even though the Frontera Sweet is not a Scotch Bonnet, it fits in well in this great triple pod test. The Foodorama Scotch Bonnet is a medium hot flavour-bomb, supertasty in a sweet and fruity way. The unusually hot Trinidad Scotch Bonnet has got more earthy and herbal tones to it. The Frontera Sweet is inbetween the two in terms of flavour, though it’s got no heat at all.

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Jamaican Hot Red (c. chinense) by Paul

A nice looking and tasty sweet variety from my 2011 season. Medium Scotch Bonnet type heat. Got the plant as a seedling from the Pfefferhaus store in Berlin. Paul grew out the seeds from the pods I sent him in the 2012 season. My plant had obviously been cross-pollinated by one of the annuums I’d been growing also, since Paul’s plants came out looking completely different from the original one, with more elongated, Apache-type pods.

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Zimbabwe Bird (c. frutescens) by Paul

Very decorative ornamental variety I grew from a seedling purchased at Pfefferhaus in 2011. Unlike many of the other ornamental peppers, on top of a short, good firecracker-type whack of heat, this one also has a distinct floral/fragrant/perfumey kind of flavour. Great one to use fresh in curry dishes or as little chilehead-bonbons on the side.

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Turbo Pube (c. pubescens) by Todd

Pubescens variety (hence the funny name) with a very complex flavour and some solid but manageable heat. Unusual look, a mix of pepper, tomato and fruit along with a burn that’s got a taste of its own. Exciting and inspiring ingredient for the culinarily inclined.

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7Pot Orange-Yellow (c. chinense) by Todd

One of my favourite varieties of the 2012 season, this pod has some killer caribbean flavour and heat … plus, as Todd notes at 11:08, a very special numbing effect: “It’s like breathing Novocaine over your tongue.”

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Habanero Hot Lemon (c. chinense) by Todd

This pod has some surprisingly strong and lasting heat for a Habanero, and it caught Todd a wee bit off guard. Check out his awesome ideas on how to use it in food from 9:35 on.

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Cornish Naga (c. chinense) by Todd

What comes around goes around. This variety is a Naga/Scorpion cross by Paul Tonkin who kindly sent me the seeds for it in 2011. I grew it in the 2012 season and gave one of my plants to Felix of the Pfefferhaus store. When Felix sent Todd a batch of hot stuff to try, I asked him to slip a few pods off the plant I gave him into the package. Which he kindly did. 🙂